Posts tagged “deadline”

Of course, as soon as I get a personal project with a deadline, I get hit with freelance jobs. Which is good. Even though it cuts into personal project time. But it brings up the question I’ve been avoiding for a while now—am I a freelancer?

When the company I worked for closed down in 2010, I started freelancing to pay the bills and go back to school so that I could find a “real” job. It was just a temporary thing. It’s been a temporary thing for over a year now. And how often have I gone around looking for something permanent? Not often at all. The thing is, when I take on a freelance job I commit to it, just like a “real” job. Because it is a real job—and one that I’m totally responsible for. I don’t have the safety net of co-workers making up for me if I can’t meet a deadline or just can’t do the work up to the client’s standards. So I don’t know how well it would go over if I called up a client to tell them I have a “real” job now, and I won’t be able to finish their project.

It’s hard to commit to being a freelancer. I never know if the job I’m working on will be the last one. I have to live on a tight budget because I don’t get paid regularly. When I’m busy, there aren’t any weekends or holidays or vacations—or sick time, for that matter. When I’m not busy, I’m stressing that this is it, I’ll never get work again. Yeah, it’s a drag to get up and commute to the cubicle job every day, but the pay is regular, you’re surrounded by supporting co-workers, and you generally get to go home at some point.

So why am I still here at the kitchen table, working? I don’t know, really. I guess it’s the challenge. It’s getting the job done early and being called a lifesaver by someone at a company 1500 miles away. It’s the siren call of that next job—what if it’s something amazing? It’s that I’ve never done this before and…well…maybe I can.